Tag: #flower

After doing coffee, I thought I’d try tea. The painting I wanted to do was of raspberry tea and some raspberries, so I that I’d use raspberry tea. It has a strong pigment and it’s red. Sounds good, right? Well, when it dries, it dries to a grayish blue color. Apparently, I won’t be painting with red. It seemed to dry strong enough, so I decided to go ahead with it, and it smelled pleasant enough.

It seems to layer more nicely than the coffee did and works more similarly to watercolor. It’s been interesting working with only one color in a painting. These are just the first layers. I always have to be sure not to go too dark in the beginning. I can always go darker later if I need to. It’s fun watching the tea go on, because it goes on red and then dries a grayish blue.

Here’s the finished piece. It was interesting see how in the darker areas, after some layers had been built up, it dried to a purple color. The raspberry tea was definitely very fun to work with and didn’t come out at all how I expected.

This 5×7 piece is now for sale on my storenvy page: shalevbasya.storenvy.com.

I decided to take in progress photos of my work. It was interesting experience. This was just the first few layers. There’s not much detail yet. I was just blocking in the basic shapes and colors. Everything still looks pretty flat in the beginning.

Stage 2

There’s now more layers and more details. Remember things are never just one color! There’s layers of multiple colors. I wanted the back leaf to stay out of focus, so I didn’t put a lot of detail into that one. I also saved the most detail for the central leaf and flower, but I still gave some detail to the other two leaves.

Stage 3

I added even more detail, darkened up some areas, and started the head of the butterfly. I wanted to do more, but ended up with a headache. So I had to quit for the day. At one point I really wanted to burn this piece I just wasn’t happy with how it was turning out.

Finished Piece

Even though the butterfly is black and white, it still has shadowed parts to it. Once I had the background color in, it was easier to tell which areas needed more attention. The colors I used in this piece were orange, red orange, two different reds, sap green, green brown, green black, black, gray, cream, and dark blue. I am hoping to get a better camera soon, so I can take higher quality photos. The photo reference is from Rodney Campbell at paintmyphoto.com. This piece is now for sale on my storenvy page. shalevbasy.storenvy.com